Domestic Politics

[Shahanga]

I'm just hoping that for this forums sake a government is formed with Xeno & part of his deal is official anti gambling ads by Tim Cahill. Oh the lols......

[Tesla]

8 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

I'm just hoping that for this forums sake a government is formed with Xeno & part of his deal is official anti gambling ads by Tim Cahill. Oh the lols......

Lol it's over for Xenophon now that they fixed the count in Grey, it really wasn't looking good if they got a second lower house seat as there would be no choice but to form gov with them.

[NewConvert]

A bit off topic but I wish I had the wit to be this venomous:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/05/tory-leadership-election-x-factor-choosing-antichrist-brexit-frankie-boyle

 

[Tesla]

As someone who initially was sceptical of the new senate voting system, I have very much changed my mind. The main issue was that technically voting just a number 1 above the line is a valid vote, but that little fact was kept under wraps pretty well and all information from AEC and the parties was that you have to at least vote 1 to 6. Ideally I'd still like to see that provision removed, especially now that everyone has experienced the new system and is no longer used to the old system of just voting 1 above the line, but overall it hasn't been the issue many people expected  (at least it doesn't seem to have been, we'll see what the senate results say about how many votes there were with less than 6 above the line).

Putting that aside, the propaganda about it giving voters control of their preferences is actually true I think. I didn't follow a htv card and really found myself struggling for the last 1 or 2 parties to number above the line, which makes you realise that 6 preferences is plenty and your vote might as well extinguish at that point, whereas if you like more than 6 parties then you can of course keep numbering.

Overall it's a welcome improvement to senate voting I think, just need to put an end to this crap where Tasmania gets as many senators as NSW and Victoria (and before I get the argument about it being the states house, what makes it the states house is that quotas are based on state wide vote rather than nation wide vote, not because each state has same amount of senators).

Really I think the lower house is the more dodgy one now, at least when people like Pauline Hanson or Xeno get seats in the senate, as much as I dislike them, it's fair enough as it's a proportional vote and it's the state's house and they represent a preportion of their state voters (I just think bigger states should have more senators), whereas the lower house some cunt in some small town can have a few votes and no one else in their state, let alone the nation, supports them but they could be quite powerful.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[thisphantomfortress]

4 minutes ago, Tesla said:

As someone who initially was sceptical of the new senate voting system, I have very much changed my mind. The main issue was that technically voting just a number 1 above the line is a valid vote, but that little fact was kept under wraps pretty well and all information from AEC and the parties was that you have to at least vote 1 to 6. Ideally I'd still like to see that provision removed, especially now that everyone has experienced the new system and is no longer used to the old system of just voting 1 above the line, but overall it hasn't been the issue many people expected  (at least it doesn't seem to have been, we'll see what the senate results say about how many votes there were with less than 6 above the line).

Putting that aside, the propaganda about it giving voters control of their preferences is actually true I think. I didn't follow a htv card and really found myself struggling for the last 1 or 2 parties to number above the line, which makes you realise that 6 preferences is plenty and your vote might as well extinguish at that point, whereas if you like more than 6 parties then you can of course keep numbering.

Overall it's a welcome improvement to senate voting I think, just need to put an end to this crap where Tasmania gets as many senators as NSW and Victoria (and before I get the argument about it being the states house, what makes it the states house is that quotas are based on state wide vote rather than nation wide vote, not because each state has same amount of senators).

Really I think the lower house is the more dodgy one now, at least when people like Pauline Hanson or Xeno get seats in the senate, as much as I dislike them, it's fair enough as it's a proportional vote and it's the state's house and they represent a preportion of their state voters (I just think bigger states should have more senators), whereas the lower house some cunt in some small town can have a few votes and no one else in their state, let alone the nation, supports them but they could be quite powerful.

You know when people ask "whats one sentence that could make you rant for an hour... blah blah crappy ice break" well this is mine.

Nothing irks me more than the fact Tasmania with less than 1 million people have the same representation as NSW with ten times the population. Tasmania should be a territory or merged with Victoria.

[jw1739]

3 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

You know when people ask "whats one sentence that could make you rant for an hour... blah blah crappy ice break" well this is mine.

Nothing irks me more than the fact Tasmania with less than 1 million people have the same representation as NSW with ten times the population. Tasmania should be a territory or merged with Victoria.

The Constitution will need to be changed to change the number of senators for each state. I think you'd find sort of proposal would receive fierce opposition from the less-populous states.

[thisphantomfortress]

12 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

The Constitution will need to be changed to change the number of senators for each state. I think you'd find sort of proposal would receive fierce opposition from the less-populous states.

I know and we have a reluctance to ever pass referendums too.

[Jimmy]

You would be more likely to see the senate scrapped all together before any sort of population based reforms got through imo.

[cadete]

44 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

You know when people ask "whats one sentence that could make you rant for an hour... blah blah crappy ice break" well this is mine.

Nothing irks me more than the fact Tasmania with less than 1 million people have the same representation as NSW with ten times the population. Tasmania should be a territory or merged with Victoria.

35 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

The Constitution will need to be changed to change the number of senators for each state. I think you'd find sort of proposal would receive fierce opposition from the less-populous states.

21 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

I know and we have a reluctance to ever pass referendums too.

Its pretty annoying...

ESP when these Smaller States can all join up and block a Referendum even if a Majority of Australians supported the thing.Mind you as I have pointed out before: It's really kind of ironic that the Senate after being a domain of largely the Major Parties for years after being initially set up to protect State Rights  is essentially now having PPL elected for such reasons.

I am pretty sure though that Parkes, Deakin and the rest of the Founding Fathers did not have Lambie, Hanson and Co in their mind as the Defenders of State Rights.

 

 

[Tesla]

39 minutes ago, cadete said:

Its pretty annoying...

ESP when these Smaller States can all join up and block a Referendum even if a Majority of Australians supported the thing.Mind you as I have pointed out before: It's really kind of ironic that the Senate after being a domain of largely the Major Parties for years after being initially set up to protect State Rights  is essentially now having PPL elected for such reasons.

I am pretty sure though that Parkes, Deakin and the rest of the Founding Fathers did not have Lambie, Hanson and Co in their mind as the Defenders of State Rights.

 

 

Actually wouldnt this case be one where a majority is needed in each state? So the states don't even need to gang up as just one state without a majority means it fails. In other words, no chance. 

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[Shahanga]

2 hours ago, thisphantomfortress said:

You know when people ask "whats one sentence that could make you rant for an hour... blah blah crappy ice break" well this is mine.

Nothing irks me more than the fact Tasmania with less than 1 million people have the same representation as NSW with ten times the population. Tasmania should be a territory or merged with Victoria.

No mate grant Tassie their independence. See if they still want to vote for Bob Brown and his ilk when they don't have someone to bludge off.

[thisphantomfortress]

2 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

No mate grant Tassie their independence. See if they still want to vote for Bob Brown and his ilk when they don't have someone to bludge off.

But then we'd get world vision ads about sponsoring a child in Davenport. Would rather have them out of sight out of mind 

[Shahanga]

It's not just the senate. The constitution gives them 5 seats in the house of reps too. That's why the voters in those seats are so few compared to elsewhere.

[thisphantomfortress]

2 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

No mate grant Tassie their independence. See if they still want to vote for Bob Brown and his ilk when they don't have someone to bludge off.

But then we'd get world vision ads about sponsoring a child in Davenport. Would rather have them out of sight out of mind 

[Tesla]

Looks like Bernardi is legit creating his own party http://www.conservatives.org.au/

[hedaik]

5 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Looks like Bernardi is legit creating his own party http://www.conservatives.org.au/

He was on 7.30 Report 2 nights ago saying how important it was to stick with Big Mal and for the Liberal factions to unify. 

[Deeming]

3 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Looks like Bernardi is legit creating his own party http://www.conservatives.org.au/

I don't think so. He says " It’s more important than ever that we unite Australian Conservatives, who share many views, regardless of their party affiliation. If you believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, a stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense, then you have a lot in common with millions of others. "

I think it will be a group used like GetUp and used to pool resources, used for networking and used to hammer out preference deals etc.

[Tesla]

Just now, Deeming said:

I don't think so. He says " It’s more important than ever that we unite Australian Conservatives, who share many views, regardless of their party affiliation. If you believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, a stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense, then you have a lot in common with millions of others. "

I think it will be a group used like GetUp and used to pool resources, used for networking and used to hammer out preference deals etc.

Yeah just saw that article, The Age article I read first was making it out as a new party, I guess they really are lefty cunts trying to cause instability. 

[NewConvert]

That will actually be a good thing that there be a conservative party with Cori Bernardi as leader. The UK, NZ, Canada, Oz and the USA have been a unique group of countries because they don't have a fragmented polity. I have always looked at the ALP party factions as two parties joined together but with different bases. The Liberal party has had factions but never formalised. The National party are a regional party. So if the Greens are sucking in the middle class left then a right wing party would do the same for the conservatives. What would this mean for Australia's politics? It would mean that people would have a greater choice and that compromises would be more visible. Internal tensions would decrease and more policy would be determined by more parties.

As for The Age trying to destabilise the Coalition, why would they? The Coalition are doing a fine job all by themselves.

[cadete]

3 minutes ago, NewConvert said:

That will actually be a good thing that there be a conservative party with Cori Bernardi as leader. The UK, NZ, Canada, Oz and the USA have been a unique group of countries because they don't have a fragmented polity. I have always looked at the ALP party factions as two parties joined together but with different bases. The Liberal party has had factions but never formalised. The National party are a regional party. So if the Greens are sucking in the middle class left then a right wing party would do the same for the conservatives. What would this mean for Australia's politics? It would mean that people would have a greater choice and that compromises would be more visible. Internal tensions would decrease and more policy would be determined by more parties.

As for The Age trying to destabilise the Coalition, why would they? The Coalition are doing a fine job all by themselves.

Um, the very reason Australian Politics is shit right now is because the Two Party System has ripped apart from infighting... more parties will just formalise this infighting like in Europe with Parties backing in and out of alliances.

The best Governments of my life time where those under Hawke (When the Right had complete control of the ALP) and when Howard had complete control of his Coalition Government... the last nine years where it has been the opposite its been shit house.

Hung Parliaments are shithouse... I thought that was just accepted fact as a undeniable as something like: JVS cant coach.

 

[Tesla]

2 minutes ago, NewConvert said:

That will actually be a good thing that there be a conservative party with Cori Bernardi as leader. The UK, NZ, Canada, Oz and the USA have been a unique group of countries because they don't have a fragmented polity.

I think you'll find a lot of that comes from what kind of system the countries have.

Most countries elect their parliament via proportional voting, real proportional voting not like we have in the Senate here where you need over 16% vote to get elected in a normal election. A lot do have a threshold, but not a high as what we have in the senate.

Of course our main house of parliament isn't proportional voting, which is why we have traditionally only had a two party system.

The US is even worse, since they have no proportional voting at all, for either house, thats why the two parties are even stronger than our two main parties.

The UK is also first past the post, again not proportional.

NZ is proportional, and they have a lot of parties elected, so I'm not sure your assertion is correct about NZ.

 

[cadete]

2 minutes ago, Tesla said:

I think you'll find a lot of that comes from what kind of system the countries have.

Most countries elect their parliament via proportional voting, real proportional voting not like we have in the Senate here where you need over 16% vote to get elected in a normal election. A lot do have a threshold, but not a high as what we have in the senate.

Of course our main house of parliament isn't proportional voting, which is why we have traditionally only had a two party system.

The US is even worse, since they have no proportional voting at all, for either house, thats why the two parties are even stronger than our two main parties.

The UK is also first past the post, again not proportional.

NZ is proportional, and they have a lot of parties elected, so I'm not sure your assertion is correct about NZ.

 

Well I def do not think Governments should be formed from Proportional Voting... to me its just says Weimar Republic.

I have said many times before than I am a big fan of the Two Party System with Compulsory voting as IMO it forces each side to the middle of the electorate to catch the votes of the Swingers... which IMO is the closest way you can get a Government to represent the Electorate.

[jw1739]

4 hours ago, cadete said:

I am pretty sure though that Parkes, Deakin and the rest of the Founding Fathers did not have Lambie, Hanson and Co in their mind as the Defenders of State Rights.

Very important point often missed by many. In fact our entire electoral/government system/organization - whatever you like to call it - was devised at the tail end of the 19C/beginning of the 20C for a newly-forming federation with a population of just under 4 million people of which fewer than 40% lived in the capital cities. The situation is very different today. There is IMO a strong argument for a review of the whole system.

Edited July 6, 2016 by jw1739

[Tesla]

19 minutes ago, cadete said:

Well I def do not think Governments should be formed from Proportional Voting... to me its just says Weimar Republic.

I have said many times before than I am a big fan of the Two Party System with Compulsory voting as IMO it forces each side to the middle of the electorate to catch the votes of the Swingers... which IMO is the closest way you can get a Government to represent the Electorate.

I think it depends.

You're right that's exactly what happens in a non-proportional system, both voters and anyone who is serious about a career in politics is given a choice of one of two parties, and those parties adjust to sit just left and just right of centre. As you always like to point out it has historically worked well in Australia.

But arguably it hasn't worked in the the last decade. Maybe we're just going through an unusual period and everything will be back to normal soon, or maybe there is some sort of permanent shift in the electorate. In that case, maybe a proportional system would work better, or maybe returning power to the states would work better since it seems the big difference in political opinion is between people from different states (maybe thats why two parties works in the US even though they had such a large difference in political views). Or maybe that's contributed to why we are having problems in the first place, that the federal government has taken too much power away from the states and so cunts vote in Xenophon and Lambie to represent their state.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[Tesla]

 

Fucking LOL @ Pauline Hanson's jimmies being clearly rustled by all the people talking shit about her.

I reckon if people keep it up she will have a complete mental breakdown eventually.

Is it illegal to throw a Halal Snack Pack at a Senator?  

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[NewConvert]

55 minutes ago, cadete said:

Um, the very reason Australian Politics is shit right now is because the Two Party System has ripped apart from infighting... more parties will just formalise this infighting like in Europe with Parties backing in and out of alliances.

The best Governments of my life time where those under Hawke (When the Right had complete control of the ALP) and when Howard had complete control of his Coalition Government... the last nine years where it has been the opposite its been shit house.

Hung Parliaments are shithouse... I thought that was just accepted fact as a undeniable as something like: JVS cant coach.

 

When you mention the Hawke years the Liberal party was tearing itself apart by infighting between Peacock and Howard but you are right during the Hawke years the Unity faction was in control. After Keating lost the election the ALP went trough several leaders before the party coalesced around Gillard and Rudd who had a truce for a while. Now it seems that the ALP is unifying around Shorten and Albanese who have a truce in place (lets face it they are all ambitious). However it is the Liberal party that is tearing itself apart over Turnbull and Abbot. Leadership of a nation is not easy in the first place but also right now the world economy plus the resultant worldwide refugee crisis is really straining the body politic.

Parliaments that cannot get things done are shithouse irrespective of whether they are hung or not. In the USA the Republicans have a massive majority in the House and a simple majority in the Senate, yet they cannot get anything done.

Historically I don't think that the smaller parties have much of a lifetime in Australia. The DLP and the Australian Democrats lasted about 20 years, the original One Nation party had 11 reps in Queensland but that didn't last very long. The Greens seem to have survived longer but as an article in The Guardian said, in this election they spent more money than ever yet did not increase their vote nor did they increase their reps. The advantage of having Cori Bernardi/Middle Class Leftys having their own party is that this will decrease the infighting in the bigger parties. If the bigger parties are reasonably led a lot of legislation can be amended through negotiations and the system keeps on working. If the smaller parties can't work within the system they will disappear.

[NewConvert]

What would be the feeling here if the Coalition entered into some agreement with Katter so that they can govern?

[mattyh001]

59 minutes ago, Tesla said:

 

Fucking LOL @ Pauline Hanson's jimmies being clearly rustled by all the people talking shit about her.

I reckon if people keep it up she will have a complete mental breakdown eventually.

Is it illegal to throw a Halal Snack Pack at a Senator?  

If it was Australian owned and produced, at least you could say you are being supportive through using local products for the public interest and thereby could ask "wtf has she got to whinge about?" (after all isn't that her whole political agenda)  👍😜

[Tesla]

1 hour ago, NewConvert said:

What would be the feeling here if the Coalition entered into some agreement with Katter so that they can govern?

I'm in support of working with whoever is going to be the easiest, and I honestly don't think he would be too bad.

In general I don't like these 'rural conservatives' as most of them are really just socialists, but because their form of socialism can be achieved without a huge amount of government interference, and because they like guns and are borderline (or completely over the line eg Pauline Hanson) racist they are considered right wing.

Actually I'm surprised all the people from the Balkans who are in Australia don't vote for these rural conservatives  

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[malloy]

8 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Actually I'm surprised all the people from the Balkans who are in Australia don't vote for these rural conservatives  

I find this funny for multiple reasons.

[Tesla]

3 minutes ago, malloy said:

I find this funny for multiple reasons.

Was waiting for the right time to mention apparently my dad voted for One Nation  

Not sure if he was joking or serious, but I am pretty sure he was serious, he is racist AF.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Tesla

[HeartFc]

If Hanson was an assertive dude one nation would get a higher primary than the Greens. Problem with Hanson isnt so much her policies, its the poor nature in which she communicates them. She always sounds like she's about to cry and its difficult to look at her longer than 15 seconds. 

[malloy]

14 minutes ago, Tesla said:

Was waiting for the right time to mention apparently my dad voted for One Nation  

Not sure if he was joking or serious, but I am pretty sure he was serious, he is racist AF.

Lol. This was one of the reasons I just didnt know if it would have been OK to mention it on here.

[Tesla]

2 minutes ago, HeartFc said:

If Hanson was an assertive dude one nation would get a higher primary than the Greens. Problem with Hanson isnt so much her policies, its the poor nature in which she communicates them. She always sounds like she's about to cry and its difficult to look at her longer than 15 seconds. 

It would help if she didn't blatantly make up false statistics and if Bernardi didn't already have a senate inquiry into Halal food which found it doesn't fund terrorism.

I'd have more respect if she gave up the thinly veiled charade that there is anything more than bigotry to her issues with Islam.

[HeartFc]

I don't believe she lies, I think she's stupid. 

[Tesla]

7 minutes ago, malloy said:

Lol. This was one of the reasons I just didnt know if it would have been OK to mention it on here.

Meh, it's nothing to do with me. In fact I find the whole thing hilarious TBH. In reality he probably just followed the ALP How To Vote card which is kind of disappointing because it really is pretty funny if he did vote One Nation.

[Jimmy]

15 hours ago, Tesla said:

It would help if she didn't blatantly make up false statistics.

This irks me more than anything else in politics.

"98% of Australians are against Halal certification"

Considering 2.21% of Australians are Muslim it leaves about -40,000 people to support it.

[thisphantomfortress]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

This irks me more than anything else in politics.

"98% of Australians are against Halal certification"

Considering 2.21% of Australians are Muslim it leaves about -40,000 people to support it.

If you take anything she says seriously you're gunna have a bad time

[jw1739]

Whatever else is considered, we certainly need to speed up the counting process. What we do now is positively medieval. One suggestion I have is close the postal vote cut-off to the day before the physical election instead of a fortnight later.

[thisphantomfortress]

I'm looking forward to three years of "I told you so" from Wilkie.

The war was an unmitigated disaster, but do we need an enquiry into what we all already know?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-07/wilkie-blames-bali-bombing-lindt-siege-on-iraq-war-involvement/7576480